The Minor Prophets are the last 12 speakers presented in the Old Testament. They stood up for what was right even though their situations were very scary and they lived in hard times. They wrote down their prophecies for the people of Israel. A prophecy is “God’s Inside Scoop;” God’s way of seeing man’s behavior, and special secrets about what God plans to do about it when men are behaving wrongly.

The Minor Prophets often spoke in God’s angry voice. It’s important to understand that God gets angry, just like our parents get angry. How many of you have heard your parents say, “Clean up this room! It’s a mess, and we didn’t raise you to be slobs!”

God is like that when we make spiritual messes. It’s like he says, “Clean this mess up! I’m not your father so you can be sloppy on me!” He wants you to behave in the ways he gave you, which keep you safe.

Sunday School Lessons Series: How The Minor Prophets Stand Up As God’s Voice

In this Sunday school lessons series, we hear from three Minor Prophets, Hosea, Micah, and Haggai, about three issues that still are a problem today.

Hosea’s words were about girls liking boys, and boys liking girls. Bad habits can start at very young ages.

It’s very common for us to believe that God has a special someone out there that we’re going to marry. Beyond that, how many boyfriends or girlfriends do you think God wants you to have? Answer: Not many. As few as it takes you to know whom you should fall in love with.

Ideally, how many times does God want you to fall in love? They should come up with once—and easily enough that it might surprise adults.

A wise man once said, “The human heart is like the human leg bone. It is not mean to be broken over and over again.”

What happens to a human leg bone that breaks three or four times? The person becomes crippled and it’s harder to walk without pain. The person walks funny.

We don’t walk on our hearts, but they can break, and if we have our heart broken three or four times, we can start to act funny. We can start to tell ourselves that love doesn’t matter. We could even end up being mean because of our pain.

When people start dating in middle school do they usually end up getting married? The answer is no, but nearly always someone has a story about a distant family member who began dating her husband in eighth grade, etc. Emphasis on “usually”.

So if they don’t get married, somebody breaks it off. And what happens to the other person’s heart? It gets hurt.

And the same in high school, only those people are older, and so the feeling gets stronger, and somebody gets hurt. And when people get to be adults, they can end up doing the very type of thing Hosea was talking about—jumping from boyfriend to boyfriend just to have someone to pay her bills for her. A union between a man and a woman is one of the greatest gifts God gives—for love, friendship, safety, having kids, for your whole life. Hence, when people get together for other reasons—just so you won’t be different in high school or middle school, or just so you don’t have to work so hard as an adult–that’s when He can put on His parent’s voice and say, “I can block you! I don’t want you acting like that!”

The Prophet Haggai puts on God’s angry parent voice over another problem we can still have today. He said,

4 “Why are you living in luxurious houses while my house lies in ruins? 5 This is what the Lord of Heaven’s Armies says: Look at what’s happening to you! 6 You have planted much but harvest little. You eat but are not satisfied. You drink but are still thirsty. You put on clothes but cannot keep warm. Your wages disappear as though you were putting them in pockets filled with holes!

7 “This is what the Lord of Heaven’s Armies says: Look at what’s happening to you! 8 Now go up into the hills, bring down timber, and rebuild my house. Then I will take pleasure in it and be honored, says the Lord.

Why was God mad in this case? Men were ignoring their place of worship while they were out trying to get rich. What did God do about it? He prevented them from getting rich.

How many of us can forget about God during the week, especially when there are things that seem so much more important? Like a sports game? Or a party? Many should confess.

Do you think that God doesn’t want us to have any fun? God wants us to have plenty of fun. He just wants to be part of the fun. He doesn’t want to be separated from the fun or thought of as unfun.

When men put making money before God, he arranged it so they didn’t make as much as they hoped. When Christian kids go around putting sports and parties before God, what might he do? You could end up having less fun than you hoped.

If we really want to have fun, we should keep our priorities straight. We should invite Him in to every area of our lives—the fun parts as well as the parts where we figure we need him. If we put Him first, what might happen? We’ll have fun in ways we never thought of ourselves. He provide plenty of fun if we put him first.

What are some of the ways we can put Him first? Come to church. Pray several times a day. Pray in thanks for what we have as well as for what we want. Do unto others. Make an effort every day.

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